Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We need another 150. A total of 248 social work graduates were recently put on a panel and 69 of them have been offered posts. I have a lot more detail in that regard if the Deputy would like it. In response to the focus of her question, I was trying to describe the various campaigns that are ongoing to recruit the diversity of staff that will be required by Tusla.

I might come back to the question about the family resource agencies in a moment. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan asked about the position of children in emergency accommodation and the things I have identified in that regard. I think she is aware that a section of the housing and homelessness action plan specifically identifies measures that are to be implemented for children while they are in emergency accommodation. For example, school transport is a key aspect of those measures. As the Deputy knows, children and families can be housed in emergency accommodation that is some distance from their schools. The first thing to say is that the provision of school transport for children who are homeless is being administered through the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. It will come out of that budget. I assure the committee that 24-hour, five-day passes will be issued to families before the bank holiday weekend. Leap cards are being organised for children and accompanying adults. That will be done by the end of this month. This will benefit children and families that already use public transport. That relates back to the transport issue we discussed earlier.

At a very early stage of our negotiations regarding children in homeless emergency accommodation, we found money within the Tusla budget to support two additional child support workers who work with Focus Ireland and other front-line agencies. We are looking for an additional number of child support workers as part of the budgetary and Estimates process. We hope we can get them. We are developing a specific scheme to ensure child care supports like the early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme are available to children who are in homeless or emergency accommodation. Perhaps Ms McNally can confirm whether we are doing that right now.